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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473441">Shift Gear, Automatic</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamingosarepink/pseuds/flamingosarepink'>flamingosarepink</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Formula 1 RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Sweethearts, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:41:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,074</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamingosarepink/pseuds/flamingosarepink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Tell me what is bothering you.” Pierre’s voice never dips above his quiet confident whisper as he presses a kiss near the hollow of Charles’s throat. If only he was more consciously aware of the kind of strength he wields.</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Pierre Gasly/Charles Leclerc</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shift Gear, Automatic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my 19th fic, and I would like to thank everyone who has supported me. The fact that I got this far is owed to all of you. Title is taken from Bad Girls by MIA.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I just don’t get it. I know that you two have been friends for a long time, but how do you do it?” </p>
<p>“Do what?” Charles blinks, bleary eyed at having caught the tail end of what his friend was talking about, the other members of their friend group having migrated to the dance floor to find willing partners, even if only for the night. Something about it seems off, almost sinister. The club music is so loud, bass reverberating through his ears just as much as the alcohol. Despite the dim lighting and smoke, he can make out their face, drink in hand. The Friday night is seemingly like any other. Even if Charles shouldn’t go out with his other friends, the ones who don’t coordinate these nights out to the off season only if they can help it because they aren’t Ferrari’s golden boy, he does. </p>
<p>He is owed it.</p>
<p>“Deal with Pierre. I know that you live with him because you’re both drivers and what not, but let’s be honest. He’s nothing like you!” </p>
<p>And to think, this friend has the audacity to laugh or maybe he just hasn’t drank enough. They truly have absolutely no idea.</p>
<p>A razor-sharp smile finds its way to Charles’s face, a side of himself that he doesn’t show often in a setting like this. But he is who he is, nothing more. </p>
<p><i>You don’t know how good it is that Pierre is nothing like me,</i> is the thought that comes to mind as Charles rises from his seat in the circle shaped booth with far too much coordination for someone who has drank as much as he has. “Where are you going?” His friend calls after him.</p>
<p>“Where do you think I’m going?” Charles responds, although most likely they won’t remember it tomorrow. “I’m going home.”</p>
<p>They do not hear it.</p>
<p>§</p>
<p>When Charles walks through the door of  their flat, everything is dark. Everything seems to point to the fact Pierre did not wait for him to arrive back home and Charles cannot entirely fault him for that, given the amount of times he had the misfortune of seeing Charles walk through the door with all of the hallmarks of a night’s worth of transgressions written on his face or walked in on them himself. That, in the end, had led to Charles coming home to no Pierre at all. No Pierre, and no trace he had ever been there once upon a time. </p>
<p>Charles doesn’t dare to ponder on it.</p>
<p>As he walks past the kitchen and down the hallway towards the bedroom, he can see a faint glow of a nightstand lamp.</p>
<p>Eventually the sight of Pierre comes into view, under the covers but leaning back against the pillows reading a book. Charles can’t help but watch him for a moment, bathed in the warm amber glow that only seems to happen at night. Truly he seems at peace.</p>
<p>Only, he looks up at the sound of the wood floor creaking under Charles’s foot.</p>
<p>He has disturbed that peace.</p>
<p>“You’re still awake?” The words seem to come out wrong from his lips, moved to ineloquence with a hint of desperation as if the image of a dark and empty bedroom is still burned into his memory in a way it shouldn’t be given where they are at in their lives now.</p>
<p>Pierre gives him a gentle, tired smile and Charles’s heart swells just so. He has always been far kinder than Charles at his worst ever deserved. Even now, there’s something about it that Charles finds unsettling. <i>How is it that he is still here after everything?</i> is the thought that dares to creep into Charles’s immediate thoughts. Along with everything else, it is left to fester.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t sleep.” The book is still open on his lap. Pierre’s tone of voice is soft, and his words remind Charles of the aftermath of Pierre having been demoted from Red Bull. All this time and a podium later, it still lingers.</p>
<p>It lingers along with the words spoken in the circle shaped booth, the insinuation that Pierre was in any way weak.</p>
<p>The mere idea of it makes something flare up inside of him, and maybe it’s his body language that makes Pierre look away back down to the book as he makes it to the dresser to retrieve the clothes that he normally sleeps in before walking to the en suite bathroom and closing the door. </p>
<p><i>You supposedly love him and yet. Yet you didn’t even try to defend him.</i> As if Charles would ever be able to tell them the truth anyway. </p>
<p>No one could ever even dare to guess. No one can ever know.</p>
<p>Pierre has never been anything but intuitive, seemingly knowing things before Charles even had the chance to speak. Everything is seemingly out in the open. Nothing is ever really hidden. Once Charles climbs into bed and his eyes find Pierre’s in the dark, the Frenchman shifts closer. Over their time together, Pierre has learned to not ask questions. </p>
<p>This will be not be one of those times. </p>
<p>As Pierre leans in and their lips meet, something about this feels familiar, not entirely unlike the time when they found themselves in the relative secrecy of yet another hotel room in yet another foreign country. There are some things that Charles would never confess, definitely never to Pierre. </p>
<p>And yet.</p>
<p>Yet how easy it had been for him to sing under the guise of kisses and clothes relegated to the floor.</p>
<p>“Tell me what is bothering you.” Pierre’s voice never dips above his quiet confident whisper as he presses a kiss near the hollow of Charles’s throat. If only he was more consciously aware of the kind of strength he wields. </p>
<p>“You don’t want to know,” Charles says breathlessly. “They were talking about you.”</p>
<p>It’s all that Pierre finds that he needs to know, sealing it with a hint of teeth to the spot.</p>
<p>§</p>
<p>Some time in the early hours of the morning when the sun is barely rising over the blue expanse of the marina outside and the light barely filters through the space where the curtains of the otherwise dark bedroom do not touch, Charles wakes. If it was any other day, he might it in himself to pry himself from Pierre’s arms and tangled legs to go about things deemed important.</p>
<p>Today is not that day.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <i>Shift gear, automatic, damned if I do<br/>Who's gonna stop me when I'm coming through?<br/>What we got left is just me and you<br/>But if I go to bed, baby, can I take you?</i>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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